


that same singing island voice

by betony



Category: The Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen, Origin Myths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four stories of Libby Beer (or one, or none).</p>
            </blockquote>





	that same singing island voice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elviella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elviella/gifts), [TLvop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/gifts).



1\. 

It was in the early days of Dalemark that the ship came from the west, making its way determinedly towards land. The crew’s hearts sank and their arms ached. They had been rowing for days with no sign of shore. The sight of gulls had given them hope, at first, but they were days away from birdsong and their thoughts turned to sacrifice. 

The girl they chose was a strong one, coarse and brutish. When they’d first set out, she’d taken her place alongside the others at the oars, battling the sea for self-determination, but in the time since she had grown weary. Her hair was streaked red with starvation; her cheeks gaunt from hunger. She kicked and spat and shrieked as they threw her abroad but she could not fight them all. She disappeared under the waves and into the heart of the sea with scarcely a ripple. 

Sacrifice always comes with recompense. Before the hungry, frightened crew, great islands rose from the sea, heavy with fruits and sprinkled with clear water. They would want for nothing. 

Sacrifice always comes with a cost. The crew had wanted land at the cost of betraying one of their own; they would have it. But in return they could never leave, and they would live apart from the lands to the east that they had sought to conquer. 

She would make sure of that. 

2\. The _Green Road_ books: love them or hate them, there is no denying they’s Dalemark’s newest sensation. The series (for the roughly three or so people who’ve managed to remain resolutely ignorant of its existence) chronicles the life and times of young Libby, a farmer’s daughter living in the South Dales and her chance encounter with Ammet, a brooding young man who orders her away for her own wellbeing, who is ultimately revealed to be Undying. Libby’s “scarlet locks” gleam in the sun, her “peridot eyes” flash with anger at least once a chapter; Ammet is suitably blond, mysterious, and elusive, and six hundred pages later, the two are finally wed. A wafer-thin plot to fuel such devotion from fans. 

Arguably, the series’ appeal comes from the enduring but doomed romance at its core. Through its page, Libby goes from clumsy farmer’s daughter whose greatest flaw is a tendency to scowl, to goddess whose temper tantrums are tolerated by all. Ammet is eternally handsome and endlessly understanding, the sort of romantic ideal our mothers warned us didn’t really exist. The world they inhabit is populated by a gleefully ahistoric mélange of Dalemark’s legends: Osfameron makes a cameo as one of Ammet’s rival suitors, Lagan lurks sinisterly around the edges, the last King of Dalemark features. 

In other words, it’s utterly ridiculous and knows it; that’s what makes it irresistible to us. 

“After all,” explains Dr. Mayelbridwen Alhammitson, professor of anthropology and mythology at the University of Hannart, with a smile, “who could seriously believe in one of the Undying existing, much less falling in love with a human?” [ continued on page 5 ]. 

\--The New Kernsburgh Herald, 7.32.209 

3\. 
    
    
    So. It was a hard night on the islands
    
    
    When the beast came from the sea,
    
    
    The bull, that wild thing,
    
    
    Breath aflame, voice thunder,
    
    
    Heart given over to anger.
    
    
    She heard the sound from afar, 
    
    
    The lady, the One’s daughter,
    
    
    Cenblith’s kindest child.
    
    
    She tied back her hair, caught up her spells,
    
    
    Took three great strides to the Holy Isles.
    
    
    A hundred days and nights they fought,
    
    
    The demon and its challenger,
    
    
    The witch and her quarry,
    
    
    Until on the first-and-hundredth day
    
    
    He knelt, all spent, and gasped, “I submit.”
    
    
    And smiled she, wise lady, Cenblith’s daughter,
    
    
    Hair caught aflame, she said:
    
    
    “All good things shall come from thee
    
    
    From now onwards; beside you
    
    
    I shall reign, from this day forward.”
    
    
    Now cast them into the water,
    
    
    To calm Ammet’s anger,
    
    
    To wash the lady’s hair,
    
    
    Let her go down into the sea to bring us
    
    
    His tribute, victor now and eternal.

\--“Hymn to the Earth”: A New Translation. 

4\. She squeezes her eyes shut against the sunlight. Foolishly she thought that never aging, never dying would also protect against other indulgences, but the headache currently pounding against her temples makes it clear that’s untrue. _Never again_ , she swears, _never again shall I taste so much as a drop of wine._

She groans: “How long have I been out?” 

The figure sitting just behind her inclines its head politely. “Long enough.” Then: “My daughter, you forget your duty.” 

She laughs. “My duty? I have never forgotten my duty. The grass grows green, the soil thick and rich to sustain it. What more could you want of me?” 

“To be happy.” 

“That is too much to ask.” She tosses her head. “And you see I am no stranger to revels. Why else would you have come to chastise me?” 

“I never chastise,” the One says sternly. 

“You always chastise,” she drawls, “and nag and complain on top of it all. I have known you long.” 

The One makes no reply. 

“I watch mortals,” she says at last, when she can bear the silence no longer. “Every day, I watch them, hiding in the trees, scavenging for what morsels of nourishment they can get, protecting their families. And every day, I remember that I was one among them, before you took me from them, only because you were lonely, and there was no one else.” 

She remembers how gently such a fate had come upon her; at first she had assumed she was lucky, quicker than the others at hunting and stronger, too, to avoid illness. Then she saw her children’s gray hair, and her own bright locks, and realized that she would be torn from them by time. She had mourned them, and their children, too, and then she had seen that they had begun to fear her. Then she had known it was time to leave. 

“I am lonely, too,” she whispers, “and only the sea hears my grief.” 

She does not speak again. She knows the One has already gone. 

Only the waves, as always, roar their comfort into her ears.


End file.
